Beware...Dream Journal!

There is a distinct genre of nightmares based on the premise that one shows up for class without realizing that it is test day, and is forced to take the test without any preparation. This has not only been a recurring nightmare of mine, it actually happened to me FOR REAL once in college. In Astronomy 101. I showed up for the study session (after, um, a couple of missed classes), and I was given a seat number. I actually asked the TA what the number was for. Heh. Somehow I got a C on that test. Ah, multiple choice.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I had one of these dreams, and I was speculating that it might have something to do with the fact that I was getting farther and farther away from any school-like experience. Then last night, the dream returned and handed me a seat number. But it was different from a lot of the other versions of the dream. It was closer to a bad dream than a true nightmare. Instead of a regular college class, it was the class I took a couple of years ago at Hamline University, when I was pregnant- a graduate seminar on the concept of “home.” And in the dream, it wasn’t the last day, it was somehow three days before the last day, and someone was asking me whether I got the big paper finished, the one that was due in three days. So I immediately began to scheme and plan for how I would be able to pull off this ten-page paper, well thought out and well researched, in three days. And really, it didn’t panic me the way the immediate test dreams always did. Maybe because I always waited until the last one or two days to write my papers?

But in the quick calculations for how I was going to pull this off, I had to figure in time for going to work, cooking and cleaning (such as it is), and taking care of Naomi. And I realized that it was going to be really tiring and I wasn’t going to enjoy it. Whine. Now I am wondering if this dream is somehow a peek into my slowly maturing psyche. Panic isn’t great, but there’s something exhilarating about finding yourself face to face with an unexpected and extremely difficult problem that you have no choice but to attempt to solve immediately. These days the problems aren’t so difficult, and they are much less urgent. Finding a solution is more about…finding the time to make the solution happen. Boring! But also? Good.